I don't think a coach is necessarily defined by winning a NC; because there are the players to consider in any ranking of a coach. I'd say if a coach consistently has Top 10 classes, and doesn't win a NC, then that might be something to be critical of.

Some schools with very fine coaches just won't ever win a NC, because they won't ever have the players to accomplish the feat. That doesn't make them lesser coaches; because if they were with a program that did have the best athletes, they'd likely take them to the big game sooner or later. A coach can only do so much with what he has at his disposal. If the players don't have the potential to be great, they just don't have it.

What I've found particularly interesting as we've discussed coaches for the last couple of weeks, and not a little contradictory too, is that the same people who seem to think one coach is washed up for not making contenders out of a team with good talent, don't hold their own coach who has great talent to the same standard.

If one coach is to be held responsible because he can't make a 10-win team out of 7 or 8-win players; then surely another coach who has 10-win players should be held responsible for not being able to make NC's out of them.

In other words, it seems awfully hypocritical to say a coach is washed up because he can't challenge for SEC titles, when the classes the school can bring in usually rank anywhere from 12th to 25th; but then turn around and say that it's not your own coach's fault that he hasn't won a NC, when the athletes his school brings in are always ranked in the Top 10.

There are probably at least 20 or 30 coaches with the ability to win a NC; but nowhere near 20 will win one, because they simply don't and won't ever have the players to do it.